Meteorologists field questions on climate change

Climate change is an inevitable and sometimes uncomfortable topic for popular weather experts hitting the speaking circuit at this year's winter meetings.

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By Candace KrebsContributing reporter

LA Junta Tribune - La Junta, CO

By Candace KrebsContributing reporter

Posted Feb. 17, 2013 at 3:00 PM

By Candace KrebsContributing reporter

Posted Feb. 17, 2013 at 3:00 PM

BURLINGTON, Colo. — Climate change is an inevitable and sometimes uncomfortable topic for popular weather experts hitting the speaking circuit at this year's winter meetings.

With last year the warmest on record and more of the same forecast for 2013, the big question is whether disappointing snowmelts, high evapo-transpiration rates, dangerous fire threat and unusually early corn plantings and grain harvests will become typical rather than exceptional in the future.

"Maybe this is the new normal, I don't know," said Hugo farmer Scott Ravenkamp recently. "Our challenge is keeping residue on the soil. My stubble is so fragile because it's just so dry all of the time."

The notion of climate change is generating frequent headlines these days. The U.S. Department of Agriculture fed into the ongoing speculation recently by issuing a widely circulated report on future climate projections with suggestions for adaptation strategies. The department is also accepting public comments on a new adaptation plan, announced as part of President Obama's sustainability initiative for the federal government, which includes goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing green power generation and fuel use.

Colorado State Climatologist Nolan Doesken said at his annual weather report presented during the Colorado Farm Show that he's tended to downplay the prospect of manmade global warming since talk of it first started back in the 1980s. Back then, he recalled one farmer telling him gradually warmer temperatures were less of a concern than dramatic fluctuations.

Flash forward to early 2013 and Doesken admits he has become more worried about the potential consequences of a warming climate and more uncertain about how easily farmers could adapt.

"In 2012, the temperatures were pretty extreme," he said. Notable heat waves struck in March and again in June. Only one year in history could rival it — 1934.

"If the computer models are anywhere close to right, 2012 will be an average year in just a few decades," he added. "We don't know what precipitation will do, but when we do have dry years, if the temperature is like this, we'll have a lot of adapting to do."

Joel Schneekloth, a Colorado State University water resource specialist based at Akron, has noted that during last year's record heat, the local corn crop used twice the water it normally would, due to high evapo-transpiration rates — just one example of the potentially drastic impacts.

Brian Bledsoe, KKTV chief meteorologist and private weather consultant from Colorado Springs who has appeared on some of the same panels with Doesken recently, remains skeptical of climate change theory though he prefers to avoid the subject because of how polarizing it has become.

"I simply can't wrap my mind around the fact that the CO2 in the atmosphere is going to supersede all the stuff I've shown you today," he said following a lengthy presentation on ocean temperature cycles and other long term trends at the High Plains No-Till Conference in Burlington. "The CO2 probably contributes something, but it is not a driver, in my opinion."

Page 2 of 2 - In fact, on a global basis, the earth actually entered a cooling phase in 2000 as the sun began emitting less energy, he said. That mirrors a solar cycle that happened in the early 1800s. "We cooled as a planet," said Bledsoe, who refers to himself as a weather historian. "We're trending that way again."

He also pointed to predictions made back in the 1950s that Florida would be underwater today.

"It's scare tactics, and it's nothing new," he said. "Throw economics and politics at something, and it gets ugly quick."

Ahead: more of the same

As they've traveled the state speaking to numerous groups, both experts have had little good news to share based on the latest weather forecasting models. 2013 will likely be unseasonably warm early, and spring winds will accelerate the harmful effects brought on by a lack of snow or rain. Conditions will continue to be harshest south of Interstate 70.

"Pueblo is very low on precipitation, almost one year of moisture short in just a two-year time period," Doesken said.

"I don't remember ever seeing where the eastern part of the state has been this bad," Bledsoe noted. "We have zero moisture in the subsoil right now."

Currently just past the halfway mark of the snow accumulation season, the snowpack is down to around 72 percent of normal statewide, Doesken said. Spring runoff from all major river basins is expected to be well below average. Reservoir storage statewide stands at 69 percent of average.

Bledsoe said the current drought is too severe to be broken by rain alone. "We have to get covered up with snow to break this pattern," he said. He also said it will take regional rather than isolated local improvement. Until then, soils will blow easier, and dry lightening will bring an elevated threat of wildfires.

Dave Anderson, a wheat farmer from Haxtun, took the dire predictions more or less in stride, expressing faith that weather conditions have nowhere to go but up. "Every day is one day closer to a rain," he said during the Colorado Farm Show.

"Every time we've set a drought record, it's been better the next year," he reasoned. "We've never had back-to-back record drought. Odds are we'll have a little bit wetter year this time around."